U.S. and Iraqi officials have today announced that two "Al-Qaeda
in Iraq" leaders have been killed in an air strike carried
out by American troops. A major flaw in the story that seems
to have been overlooked, is that both of the men have already
been reported captured and killed on several occasions, with
U.S. officials also having previously declared one of them a
"fictional character" that was invented by the other!

The deaths of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda
in Iraq, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of an umbrella
group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, should disrupt insurgent
attacks inside the country, officials said. Their slayings
could also provide Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (pictured
above) with a decisive political boost at a critical time.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most
significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of
the insurgency," Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander
of U.S. troops in Iraq said in a statement. "There is
still work to do but this is a significant step forward in
ridding Iraq [of] terrorists."

The two insurgent leaders were said to have been killed on
Saturday in a night raid involving Iraqi and American forces.

United States military officials confirmed that Iraqi security
forces had killed the two men. “The death of these two
terrorists is a potentially devastating blow to Al Qaeda in
Iraq,” the American command said in a statement.

He (the Iraqi prime minister) said the house was destroyed,
and the two bodies were found in a hole in the ground where
they had apparently been hiding.

Bizarrely, the Reuters piece quotes the Iraqi prime minister
pinpointing the location of the raid as "a house in Thar-Thar,
a rural area 50 miles west of Baghdad that is regarded as a
hotbed of Qaeda activity", however, the Washington Post
report quotes U.S. officials saying the raid occurred "a
few miles southwest of Tikrit". If you look at a map of
Iraq, those two descriptions do not entirely add up, unless
you consider "a few miles" to be over 100. Certainly
a more specific location could have been given.

However, that is perhaps the least of the problems surrounding
this story.

Al-Baghdadi was the replacement al-CIA-da boogie man for Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, who was also previously reported captured
and killed on several occasions, after al-Zarqawi was
laid to rest for good by the PR arm of the Pentagon
in 2006.

The announcement of al-Baghdadi's capture year ago, jarred
with multiple previous reports over a two years period, detailing
his arrest, his death and even questioning his existence altogether.

In March 2007, the Interior Ministry of Iraq claimed that al-Baghdadi
had been captured in Baghdad. This was reported by AP and picked
up by the likes of CNN, whose report stated that another insurgent
had positively confirmed al-Baghdadi's identity.

The U.S. military denied that al-Baghdadi was in their custody,
however, and one day later Iraqi officials retracted
their statements regarding his arrest.

Indeed this back and forth announcement of capture and later
retraction occurred
three times in the space of one week.

However, in July 2007, the U.S. military declared that al-Baghdadi
had never
actually existed and was, for all intents and purposes,
a myth.

A reportedly high ranking "Al Qaeda in Iraq" detainee
identified as Khaled al-Mashhadani, then claimed that al-Baghdadi
was
a fictional character created to give an Iraqi
face to a foreign-run terror group, and that the "Islamic
State of Iraq" was a "virtual organisation in cyberspace"
created by al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayub al Masri.

The person claiming to be Baghdadi continued to release video
and audiotapes attacking U.S. occupation of Iraq, but refused
to show his face.

The U.S. military's claim that Baghdadi is a fictitious character
was then challenged in May 2008 after a police chief in Haditha
said Baghdadi's real identity is Hamed Dawood Mohammed Khalil
al Zawi. "He was an officer in the security services and
was dismissed from the army because of his extremism,"
the police chief told
al Arabiya television.

A year later, in April 2009, following his latest capture,
the Iraqi government displayed
a picture of Baghdadi for the first time, adding
that they were attempting to glean information from him.

But Iraqi officials then released
a video of Baghdadi's interrogation, in which he
claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra
in February 2006, and also described how his terrorist group
was funded.

However, tapes and messages continued
to be released throughout 2009 in the name of Baghdadi,
claiming that he had not been captured and spurring on militants
in Iraq. Up to the present day in 2010, such messages continued
to be reported on by mainstream sources, such as
the Associated Press, without any explanation as
to how a captured terrorist could be releasing the material.

Now Baghdadi has been reported killed again!

The story becomes even more intriguing given that the second
man reported to have been killed and found in a ditch last Saturday
was Abu Ayub al Masri - the "creator" of the fictional
character of al-Baghdadi.

Prime Minister al-Maliki's presumed amnesia over the fact that
he already annouced Baghdadi captured less than twelve months
ago becomes more suspect when you take into account that he
is trying to negotiate support for his State of Law coalition
following parliamentary elections in which it emerged only as
the second largest bloc.

Presumably the ridiculous loose ends of this soap opera will
now be tied off and memory holed - although we cannot put it
past al Masri and his imaginary friend to rise from the grave
one more time a year down the line, particularly given that
the Baghdadi character keeps being resurrected and acknowledged
by the Iraqi government, the U.S. military and the mainstream
media.

This saga is another example of how a manufactured smoke and
mirrors propaganda veils reality. The "war on terror"
mantra continues to be propagated as justification to wage permanent
occupation and control over the middle east by the global elite.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, al Zarqawi, al Baghdadi and the legions
of other al qaeda operatives who have been reportedly
captured and killed over and over are used as interchangeable
PR tools.

Are or were any of them ever real? Possibly. Was there more
than one Baghdadi? Maybe. However those facts matter little
now.

Once again 99% of the corporate media will no doubt enthusiastically
champion the latest killings as a key victory in the continuing
war on terror, and the majority of Americans who even notice
will not take a second glance at the ludicrous back story.